Harshing your mellow since 9/01

Category: Charity begins at home.

Beginning to find the recent tsunami of sleaze, sordidness, and perfidy tiresome? Try this on for size, then.

The phrase “he’d give you the shirt off his back” is routinely used to describe someone who would give everything to help another, but how many are as giving as Johnny Bobbit, Jr.?

Bobbit recently stepped up to help a literal damsel in distress after Kate McClure ran out of gas. McClure pulled over and got out of the vehicle to walk to the nearest gas station.

Bobbit, however, was having none of it. He knew the neighborhood was a dangerous place for a woman to walk alone:

[Bobbit] told me to get back in the car and lock the doors. A few minutes later, he comes back with a red gas can (and) his last 20 dollars to make sure I could get home safe.

This is a serious act of generosity from anyone. But Johnny Bobbit is homeless, and that last $20 may have meant all sorts of important things to him. He gave it to someone in need, even though most of us would have seen Bobbit as the one in need.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Bobbit is a former Marine.

McClure was so appreciative of his act, she started a GoFundMe campaign. Her goals were simple:

I would like to get him first and last month’s rent at an apartment, a reliable vehicle, and 4-6 months worth of expenses. He is very interested in finding a job, and I believe that with a place to be able to clean up every night and get a good night’s rest, his life can get back to being normal.

The campaign has amassed, as of this writing, almost $380,000 for Bobbit.

With that money, Bobbit could buy a modest home, a reliable vehicle, and get any treatment he needs. Hopefully he can find and maintain gainful employment.

Indeed. I know both from observation and bitter personal experience that once you’re down, the way the system is structured makes it very damned difficult to climb back up again. That difficulty is compounded severely as one gets older, too. There’s nobody to blame for it, and there’s no point in complaining about it; it’s just the way it is, that’s all. When you’re in a hole, it gets deep so incredibly fast that before you know it you can’t even tell which way is up anymore. So I wish Bobbit the best of luck in getting his feet back under him again. I sincerely hope he makes it.

No government program, once established, can ever be ended. No spending, no matter how wasteful or ineffective, can ever be cut.

Since welfare reform was enacted in 1996, annual spending on the nation’s anti-poverty programs has more than doubled. For the more than $1 trillion spent overall in 2016, we could have mailed a $20,000 check to every household with below-average income. Yet the Left’s appetite for more spending remains insatiable. A widespread belief holds that, since the Clinton-era reforms, the welfare state “ceased its expansion and began to retreat”; that a safety net “torn to shreds” is “thin and getting thinner.” Proposals in the new Trump administration budget to check the extraordinary and unsustainable growth of welfare spending are “Robin-Hood-in-reverse policies in an unprecedented scale,” the common theme of which is “really hurting the poor.”

…despite the claims from critics that Trump is waging class warfare on the poor, this budget, if fully implemented over two terms, would leave social safety-net spending by 2024 higher than under any president not named Obama.

How, then, are critics defining an acceptable level of anti-poverty spending versus one that is “cruel and short-sighted,” to quote House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi? The only guiding principle appears to be “More.”

Well, duh. How else are you gonna get more people dependent on government for their survival, and keep them voting Democrat Socialist?

The truly ironic thing is, despite Democrat Socialist handwringing and hysteria, absolutely nobody is really talking about eliminating the social safety net; just about everybody needs a little help sometimes, and sometimes the government is the only realistic option for that, although generally speaking private charities usually are more efficient and humane. But if you think the goal of Pelosi and her foul ilk is actually to help anybody, you’re dreaming. Their motivation is the same as it always is, each and every single time: power, and control.

Three Afghan National Army soldiers are missing from a Cape Cod military base where they had been taking part in a training exercise.

The Massachusetts National Guard reported that the three were reported missing by security personnel at Joint Base Cape Cod late Saturday, and said there is no indication that they pose a public threat. A statement identified the soldiers as Maj. Jan Mohammad Arash, Cpt. Mohammad Nasir Askarzada, and Cpt. Noorullah Aminyar.

U.S. military officials told The Associated Press that the men arrived at Camp Edwards on Sept. 11. They were last seen during a day off at the Cape Cod Mall in Hyannis.

Massachusetts National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. James Sahady told the Cape Cod Times that the men “had the freedom to come and go.”

“If they were off-duty, they could go to McDonald’s or the mall,” he said.

So? No worries; I’m sure they’re just out there doing jobs Americans won’t do. We should bring them out of the shadows and welcome them with open arms, plenty of welfare boodle, and Democrat Socialist voter registration forms. They have full Constitutional rights just like everyone else in the world does, and hey, it’s not as if we’re going to deport them all anyway. Right, Boehner? McCain? Rubio? Anybody…?

All sarcasm aside, and assuming they aren’t here to blow some shit up, they faced returning to the bleak hellhole that is Afghanistan at some point. Who could blame them for trying to take advantage of our open-borders, no-rules immigration policy to avoid that fate worse than death? On the other hand, if they really wanted to come here to stay, they’d have been better off just walking across the former southern border. Nobody would even be looking for them if they’d done it that way.

The guys before me put precisely 0.0 percent effort into their “job hunt.” And this is an extremely common problem. Ask anyone who works at a customer service desk, or any manager at an establishment that commonly attracts job searchers in my age demographic or younger. When I worked as a shift manager at a pizza place eight years ago, I once had a dude walk in with his SHIRT OFF and slung over his shoulder. He came up to the counter and said, “what’s up? I need a job.”

I said, “I’m sure you do. Goodbye.”

Everyone deserves a living wage? That’s a nice thought, but I prefer to walk around in the real world with my eyes open. It’s safer this way. And it allows me to see that a certain portion of the population can’t even be bothered to speak in full sentences when searching for employment opportunities.

There are a lot of unemployed people in this country. Many are hardworking, ambitious, competent people who have fallen on tough times. I feel for them. I take solace in the knowledge that these folks will get through it, because that’s what hardworking, ambitious, competent people do. God bless them. I pray for them and their families. But then there’s the other sort of unemployed person; the sort who’s unemployed because they deserve to be unemployed. They drift around like dried up leaves, floating on the breeze. They expect to do nothing, make no attempt to better themselves or their situation, and still have society hand them their “due.” Some nefarious forces want us to pretend that this kind of person doesn’t exist.

DETROIT — Sheilah Johnson was a building inspector for the city for 28 years, a college graduate who passed up jobs that paid more because a city job offered stability and the promise of a good pension.

But the city’s recent plunge into bankruptcy — overseen by an outside emergency manager answerable to the state government, not the citizens of Detroit — makes her wonder whether she and other African American residents of the impoverished city will be able to stop Wall Street creditors from seizing what’s left of a municipal treasury they paid into for most of their lives.

“When my 9-year-old grandson asks me, ‘Grandma, are they trying to make us slaves again?’ how do I answer that child?” Johnson said, breaking into tears during court hearings over the city’s bid to launch the nation’s largest-ever municipal bankruptcy.

Easy–you say, “Child, don’t you ever say such a foul thing again. Slavery was a terrible, terrible injustice, a stain that was washed from our nation only by the letting of a veritable ocean of blood. What we have here in Detroit is the just and inevitable fruits of decades of willful Democrat Socialist mismanagement, incompetence, and corruption. The slaves brought to America in chains were truly victims; on the other hand, we were the agents of our own misfortune, brought low by refusing to contemplate any other way of running our city than the usual Democrat Socialist free-lunch-and-theft program. It has worked out this way every single time it’s been tried, in countries in every corner of the globe. We should have educated ourselves, involved ourselves, and learned the lessons of history; because we were too lazy or stupid or complacent to do so, we must now pay the price for our indolent folly. We were arrogant enough to think we could conquer reality by ignoring it; now reality is kicking our ass, and we have no one to blame but ourselves. We voted ourselves into this, elevating cheap grifters and even outright criminals to positions of power and influence again and again and again. Now we have to shoulder the burden and carry the weight. It’s tough, but it’s the way it is, and it bears no more resemblance to the horror of slavery than a hummingbird does to a honey badger. It’s a gross obscenity to even suggest that it might, and I am horrified to think that you’ve been raised in such a way as to have your capacity to reason so grotesquely distorted.”

See? Not too tough to figure out. Of course, this sucking, clinging parasite said nothing of the sort. Which is part of the problem. It all comes back to an insidious, deep-rooted, and artificially-inflicted confusion over what “deserve” really means.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Markwayne Mullin knew it was coming and he had his speech ready.

So when his wife, Christie, suggested they adopt twin girls who had lived in separate homes since they were infants, he let her have it.

“I said, ‘No babe, don’t even go there.’

“I said, ‘Look, do you remember I’m in D.C. all the time now, do you remember that you’re raising three kids by yourself, do you remember you just recently had to pull your first calf? You remember you’re taking care of the farm now? Do you remember how much more responsibilities you have with the business now? Do you remember all these different responsibilities?’”

He would write a check, he said, since “it’s easier sometimes to give money than it is to give time.”

When she tried again soon after, he gave the speech again, but she played what Mullin called her trump card.

“Would you pray about it?” she asked him.

“How do you pray about that?” Mullin asked the people who attended his town hall meeting in Henryetta a week ago. “I mean, really.

“‘Hey Lord, would you please, please make her heart as selfish as mine?’

Read on for a truly sweet, heart-warming story. Mullin is obviously a breed of man we could use a whole lot more of, and not just in government. Likewise his wife; a most humble and sincere hat tip to the both of ’em.

Sounds like our old friend Bob could use a little help, if you’re in a position to offer some. Being a perennially broke-ass musician and writer myself, I definitely ain’t, but if you’re one of those increasingly rare types who has more than two nickels to rub together, please consider throwing a little something Bob’s way. I know he’d very much appreciate it.

Glenn, I’ve been thinking about this. I’m a libertarian who mainly votes Republican because fiscal conservatism comes first and freedom, to me, means more than just the freedom to f*ck who I want and kill fetuses.

And I’m saying to myself, why am I going to war for these people? All this effort to try to protect the “job creators” and they’re voting for Obama and ever larger government and more taxes. I think it’s time to give them what they want! I would love to see a Republican bring forth a bill to tax the sh*t out of those making over $500k (the 1%). These are the people who live in these enclaves. Let’s do comprehensive tax reform, eliminate most or all deductions and lower rates for everyone…except them. Let their rates go back to the Clinton era rates AND eliminate their deductions. This goes hand in hand with your “eliminate the Hollywood Tax Cuts” proposal. Now granted, this would not do a whole lot to address the budget deficit. Anyone who is good at math knows that. However, it completely cuts the legs out from the Democrats, gives these rich jerks their just desserts for voting for Obama and supporting him financially, and will help insulate the married working professionals who Obama and the Dems REALLY want to soak. You can even defend it in public to your base by telling them “Look at the stats, these people vote in DROVES for Obama. They want this. They deserve this”. Once you’ve passed this bill to raise taxes on these liberal elite, when the Dems come back to try to get the rest of us, they will no longer be able to demonize R’s for protecting “the rich”. The Republicans are now protecting working families who are just trying to finance their own retirements, their kids’ college educations and pay their mortgages. They could KILL the Dems in ads and they would have nothing to fall back on. Am I crazy? I think this is the way to go.

They got the government they deserve, so we should definitely not forget about the “good and hard” part. HEY, LIBTARDS, I WANT MY FREE SHIT! DINNER FOR THE NEXT TEN YEARS…ON MICHAEL MOORE!

New tax: Any fee of $1 million or more, the performance for which is substantially completed over the course of six months or less, is hit with a 20% surtax above and beyond normal tax rates. If the work for fee is completed in five months or less, 30%; if the work for fee is completed in four months or less, 40%; if three months or less, 50%.

Reason? If you’re making $10 million on a Hollywood shoot that lasts six weeks, that’s not fair. Even among millionaires, that’s not fair. The usual millionaire must work a full year for that kind of money. But a high paid actor, or athlete, can make that much in a season, and then take the rest of the year off.

And the United States of Alinsky is all about fair, as in their fair share. So pay up, Hollywood bitches. My three-year-old needs her free birth control, y’know. STOP HOLLYWOOD’S WAR ON WOMEN NOW!

Ace goes on:

I’d like to think of some way to tax the Kennedys’ trusts at a higher rate. I don’t know how to do that, though.

I do: implement a Kennedy tax, targeted directly at them. Set it at about 80 percent or so. Time for these rich, lily-white greedhead bastards to kick in their fair share, too.

I know we’re all just kind of joking around here, but the truth is, we really ought to start getting serious about this. Hollywood celebrities, athletes, and other rich liberal entertainers are used to having their Progressivist cake and eating it too. It’s high time we called them on it. You want to keep ramming socialism down our throats, fine; you pay for it, then.

If you manage to make it all the way through this one dry-eyed, well, I just don’t even wanna know about it. The title of the article…well, truer words were never spoken, that’s all. The accompanying picture is about as eloquent a one as you’ll ever see as well. What a beautiful story; what a fine young man is Rudy. We could sure use a lot more like him.

incidentally, there’s an e-mail link in the comments section to the headmaster of the school; I tried sending one myself, and it bounced. For whatever that’s worth. Thanks a million to DrewM for sharing this one.

“Yesterday, the Treasury Department’s inspector general issued its second report on homebuyer credit fraud. And the scams are worthy of a Carl Hiasson novel. Among the lowlights: 1,295 prisoners received $9.1 million in credits for houses they claimed to buy while incarcerated. Two hundred forty-one were serving life sentences at the time.”

The Davey family’s £815-a-week state handouts pay for a four-bedroom home, top-of-the-range mod cons and two vehicles including a Mercedes people carrier.

Father-of-seven Peter gave up work because he could make more living on benefits.

Yet he and his wife Claire are still not happy with their lot.

With an eighth child on the way, they are demanding a bigger house, courtesy of the taxpayer.

Mrs Davey has never had a full-time job while her 35-year-old husband gave up his post in administration nine years ago after realising they would be better off living off the state.

At their semi on the Isle of Anglesey, the family have a 42in flatscreen television in the living room with Sky TV at £50 a month, a Wii games console, three Nintendo DS machines and a computer – not to mention four mobile phones.

With their income of more than £42,000 a year, they run an 11-seater minibus and the seven-seat automatic Mercedes.

But according to the Daveys they have nothing to be thankful for.

“It doesn’t bother me that taxpayers are paying for me to have a large family,” added Mrs Davey.

Nothing short of despicable. This is what the sort of weak, subhuman drones whelped by the Almighty State look like:

Ever seen a fat leech? Well, you have now. And don’t even begin to kid yourself that it could never happen here.

In the United States, Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute calculates that if the federal government were to increase every single tax by 30 per cent it would be enough to balance the books—in 25 years. Except that it wouldn’t. Because if you raised taxes by 30 per cent, government would spend even more than it already does, on the grounds that the citizenry needed more social programs and entitlements to compensate for their sudden reduction in disposable income.

In Canada, the average household’s debt-to-income ratio reached an all-time high in 2009. Credit-card holders at least three months behind with their payments increased by 40 per cent.

In Greece, public sector workers are rioting over the right to continue retiring at age 58.

In Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland, government spending accounts for between 73 and 78 per cent of the economy, which is about as high as you can get without embracing full-scale Sovietization. In the English city of Newcastle, three-quarters of the working population are employed by the government.

…You know that “economic downturn” you hear so much about? It goes away if you work for the government! Indeed, you get an economic upturn. USA Today reports that at the start of the “downturn” the U.S. Department of Transportation had just one employee earning more than $170,000 per year. Eighteen months later, it has 1,690. … A U.S. government employee gets an average $41,000—that’s not salary, that’s in additional benefits.

The new class war in the Western world is between “public servants” and the rest of us. In Greece, the bloated public service has leeched so much out of the economy that they’ve run out of Greeks to stick it to, and require an intervention by the European Union. Likewise, the debauched public sector of California is pinning its hopes on federal largesse. At a certain level, American public opinion understands this. It’s why Obama has fallen so far so fast. Fourteen months ago, it seemed like a smart move to make “trillion” a routine part of the Washington lexicon. Now all its many citations do is remind even the most innumerate that the Democrat project is a crock, and the word itself is merely shorthand for “money we don’t have and will never have.”

OBAMA: How many people are getting’ insurance through their jobs right now? Raise your hands? A’right. Well, a lot of those folks, your employer, it’s estimated, would see premiums fall by as much as 3,000%, which means they could give you a RAISE!

FOLLOWERS: (cheering)

The White House says Obama meant $3,000 dollars, not percent.

In other words, Obama says his Health Reform is so good, employers will have piles of extra dollars laying around like Scrooge McDuck in his bank vault, all to give you your $3,000 raise! Congratulations on a job well done!

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the only ones scheduled for a raise like that are…you guessed it:

Members of the U.S. Congress will get $4,700 cost-of-living (COLA) raise beginning in January 2009. The average member of Congress will realize a 2.8 percent raise, bringing his or her annual salary to $174,000. The raises for congress will cost taxpayers $2.5 million during 2009.

With passage of the Ethics Reform Act of 1989, lawmakers authorized themselves the automatic – no debate, no vote – annual cost-of-living raise unless they specifically pass legislation rejecting or reducing it. … In 2008, lawmakers accepted a $4,100 raise. So far, no legislation rejecting the 2009 COLA increase has been introduced. …

During the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin proposed that elected government officials not be paid for their service. Franklin’s proposal won little support. As you might guess, this year’s automatic raise for Congress coming as millions of American workers are giving up their cost-of-living raises in an effort to save their jobs — if they still have them – has similarly won little support.

$174,000 plus benefits doesn’t keep the wolf away from the door like it used to. It barely keeps congressional wives barefoot and indigent.

Yet you balk when I ask for a night at the Motel 8 in Moline and some Burger King coupons. I don’t get it.

Via The Rosett Report, who also ask “Hey–let’s see all the videotape!” …not just the tapes of alleged Mossad agents, but also the tapes of the terrorists and arms dealers who were meeting with dearly departed al-Mabhouh.

The program was popular and successful, so no wonder failure-and-poverty pimps like Little Dick Turban and his fellow command-and-controllers are ag’in it:

House and Senate Appropriators this week ignored the wishes of D.C.’s mayor, D.C.’s public schools chancellor, a majority of D.C.’s city council, and more than 70 percent of D.C. residents and have mandated the slow death of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. This successful school voucher program—for D.C.’s poorest families—has allowed more than 3,300 children to attend the best schools they have ever known.

The decision to end the program, a decision buried in a thousand-page spending bill and announced right before the holidays, destroys the hopes and dreams of thousands of D.C. families. Parents and children have rallied countless times over the past year in support of reauthorization and in favor of strengthening the OSP.

Yet, despite the clearly positive results and the proven success of this program,Sen. Dick Durbin, Rep. Jose Serrano, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Secretary Arne Duncan worked together to kill the OSP. Funding the program only for existing children shrinks the program each year, compromises the federal evaluation of the program, denies entry to the siblings of existing participants, and punishes those children waiting in line by sentencing them to failing and often unsafe schools.

The Democrats have effectively ended the voucher program. Obama only extended it into the 2009-2010 school year. He could have done more. He didn’t. Underprivileged children — whom the Democrats oppress “protect” from the greed and injustices of the Right — had a chance to gain the social justice and fairness Obama continuously touts in his speeches.

Touts, or pays lip service to, in the interest of glomming more power by hoodwinking the people during an election?

I keep thinking -hard- about what an amazing example the DC Voucher program could be…if it was really adopted as a cause celebre on the right. Not just as a punchline, but as a going concern.

There just aren’t that many recipients, and there’s a mighty strong overlap in DC between “underprivileged” and “permanent Democrat voters.” And these identical voters are personally steamed. They can recognize being completely jobbed. If there’s one spot to push to shatter this particular unholy alliance, it is precisely this spot.

Think of it as a reverse-ACORN. Scholarships are strictly need based – not race based. An endowment focused on K-12 instead of higher education.

I like it. S/he provides some worthy potential names for such a scholarship, as does another of Insty’s readers, but I kinda like the Clarence Thomas scholarship fund myself. Or might that be too Uncle-Tom-ish for you bigoted liberals out there? Too much risk of inspiring those poor minorities you’re so fond of manipulating and deceiving to get off the Donk/Big Massa Government plantation at last, perhaps?

“…to…secure the Blessings of Liberty to…our Posterity”–Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America

A CHRISTMAS PARTY

of Death.

Rushing through a bill to kill babies on Christmas Eve is a perfect metaphor for this National Disgrace Congress and its Pro-Death president. After all, this president voted four times to sweep up premature infants off the floor at Christ Hospital and throw them out with the trash.

Three decades ago, Americans decided they did not want to be in the abortion business. Whatever their position on the issue, most Americans don’t want to fund abortions with tax dollars. This bill sweeps away all that.

Whatever fraudulent and tissue-thin protections that remain would easily be thrown aside later. Even if your state did somehow manage to navigate the judicial minefield and opt out, as a federal taxpayer you would still be funding abortions in other states.

This is not the time to crow, or gloat, or wink, or pat each other on the back over Dem dissension and stupidity. It’s time to redouble our efforts to DEFEAT THIS TYRANNICAL TAKEOVER OF THE MOST PERSONAL PART OF OUR INDIVIDUAL LIVES.

The most notable campaign against the philanthropic status quo has been waged by the California-based Greenlining Institute, a nonprofit that seeks greater “racial and economic justice” by attempting to force greater minority representation in government, commerce, and higher education, mostly by publicly shaming or suing companies into doing the right thing. (The institute’s name is a play on the practice by banks of “redlining” poor neighborhoods as bad credit risks; “most of our money,” its director has boasted, comes not from donations but “from lawsuits.”)

Good thing we outlawed “red-lining” and forced the banks to make bad loans in the name of “fairness”. Sure, it helped collapse the real estate market, implode the value of your home, gut the home-building industry and cause an economic meltdown–but at least its “fair”!

By the way, these “institutes” got the California legislature to pass a measure forcing foundations to fund groups who looked…exactly like them! The measure was dropped, however, after the foundations agreed to pay the protection money “voluntarily”. Nice work if you can get it.

Leftists believe these tasks are justly the responsibility of government, and that leaving them in private hands is a way of keeping the public sector from performing its true function as the administrator of social justice.

The value of private philanthropy should not be measured solely by the dollars and cents that are raised and distributed. Philanthropy is a key element in the sustenance of a civil society in which a free people are free to invest their energies in the causes that animate them—including operas and museums and, yes, magazines, which have been known to be part of a flourishing culture and which some poor people and minorities have been known to enjoy.

You know those bumper stickers that say “Don’t steal: the Government hates the competition”? Well, they hate the competition when you give, too. There is a reason Obama proposed raising taxes on charity. Charities compete with the State.

The Statist views the government as the be-all and end-all of life, a sperm-to-worm parent/employer/bodyguard/nanny/scold. Charities, churches, employers, your bowling league, even the family are all illegitimate competitors for your loyalty, energies and funds.

And the Statist believes that all money belongs to the government. That’s why A Dream of His Father was the 100% Tax Rate:

“Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed.”

That’s the Dream, right there: Government owns everything and efficiently dishes it out based on scientific formulas designed by compassionate, all-knowing, all-seeing experts and bureaucrats.

Even where the government does give to charity, it expects something in return. It gives to NPR and PBS and gets reliable liberal news in return. The NEA is now funding “artists” who are expected to reliably push Obama’s legislative agenda with their “art”. Even Faith-Based Initiatives are no longer seen as an equitable way to involve the faithful, but as a way of paying off supporters and turning faith-driven organizations into functional arms of the State.

Never again will your children be forced to clean their rooms on the weekend in violation of child labor laws just to get an allowance. Besides, that gives you an unfair imbalance-of-power advantage over them. No, the Government will decide their allowance. And, come to think of it, yours too.

“What political power could ever carry on the vast multitude of lesser undertakings which the American citizens perform every day…No sooner does a government attempt to go beyond its political sphere and to enter upon this new track than it exercises, even unintentionally, an insupportable tyranny…it is never easy to discriminate between its advice and its commands.”

“If we cede the expression of compassion to a central authority, we will have fundamentally altered the nature of our society and of ourselves, creating a far greater disaster than any Katrina ever could.”

“I tell groups, “‘Get off your sofas; don’t wait for Obama to come fix your economic problems. Start thinking out of the box like we had to.'”

Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 17: “It will always be far more easy for the State governments to encroach upon the national authorities than for the national government to encroach upon the state authorities…Upon the same principle that a man is more attached to his family than to his neighborhood, to his neighborhood than to the community at large, the people of each State would be apt to feel a stronger bias towards the local governments than toward the government of the Union.”

It’s easy to see that those days are long gone. A week doesn’t go by without planeloads of state and local officials flying to Washington and pleading on bended knee for federal subsidies for activities that once were unambiguously their responsibility.

Frank goes on to note how towns are swapping their “Made in Washington” Stimulus projects because they have no flexibility otherwise. Remember “Unfunded Mandates”? Well, these mandates are funded, at least for a while.

The Feds have finally leveraged the biggest difference between them and the states; states have balanced budget laws and can’t print money. Feds can spend money and print money night and day, day and night.

Our system is so messed up and upside down that we have town councils that want to impeach the president and aldermen with their own foreign policy, while Congress wants to write barking dog ordinances and state labor laws. They want to run the world through the UN and run your homeowners association through the Stimulus.

Remember that the stimulus bill included a clause saying that if a governor refuses to accept stimulus funds allocated to his or her state, the state legislature can override the governor’s decision by passing a concurrent resolution. It means that governors, such as Sanford, who have said that they would not accept the money, could be overridden by their state legislative bodies. The clause targeted at Governor Sanford and was crafted by Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 Democrat in the House of Representatives.

Finally, starting this week the National Democrats have been running ads in South Carolina accusing Republican Governor Sanford of putting politics ahead of jobs and schools.

Would those who supported the stimulus like to explain to taxpayers who will pay for the stimulus? Do they also want to explain who will have to continue paying for these new programs when the stimulus money runs out? I didn’t think so.

This is an outrageous power grab by Congress, the president and his Teleprompter. They know that it’s unconstitutional to meddle in the balance of power within a state, but they’ve abandoned their oaths long ago. Our Founders took exceptional care to balance interests and check powers…but these baling-wire bail-out queens think they’re smarter than our Framers.

Why is a Democrat NATIONAL Committee running agitprop commercials aimed at a STATE governor?

Did Obama run as Governor-in-Chief? Does he want to be South Carolina’s Labor Commissioner? Then he should resign, move to South Carolina and run for that office since he knows exactly what South Carolina’s unemployment policies should be.

Has Congress has done such a great job in Washington, that they should run the state governments, too? They can’t even run their own power plant or cafeteria correctly. They are corrupting state governments with this Control Freak Power Grab. And stealing from the citizens of each state their precious right, the right to tell Washington to “Go to hell.”

Those fifty stars still mean something, even if this Congress, this President and this Teleprompter have forgotten what that is.

If state law does not give the state legislature the right to bypass the governor, how can Congress just change that law? Where does Congress get the power to change a state constitution? …Congress is not telling a state, “You must change your state constitution before we will give you a dime.” Instead, Congress is simply telling the state, “We have changed your state constitution so that we give more power to the state legislature, without any pesky interference from the governor.”

I fully support President Obama’s position to shut down the terrorist detention center on Guantanamo Bay. Closing this facility is an important step toward helping America regain its moral stature in the international community.

Closing the terrorist detention center on Guantanamo Bay (GTMO) raises some very complex issues, particularly when it comes to relocating the prisoners to other detention centers. It is my understanding that Fort Leavenworth is being considered as one possible site to relocate the prisoners. As Governor of Kansas, I wanted to communicate with you at the outset of this decision-making process and share with you that I do not support prisoners being moved to the Fort.

She goes on to list all the endless problems associated with bringing them to the US–except the problem that really concerns her: her own re-election. She actually makes a great and convincing case…for leaving them at Gitmo!

At least Gov. Ritter of Colorado stepped up and is willing to endanger his citizens by bringing vicious terrorists to Colorado. Sebelius just wants all the plaudits that come with the moral preening and posturing, while all the costs are to be borne by other people, states, and especially, other governors.

Willing the ends–but not the means–is the magical thinking of small children, the mentally-deficient and the pathological.

And now there’s an example that even the TwoDollarWhore-Media will find slightly more difficult to ignore.

Forget for a moment that Obama should be sending money to his aunt and not vice versa; she was able to send him $240 even though she is a Kenyan national because there is no requirement to affirm one’s American citizenship on Obama’s contribution form.

But there is on John McCain’s website. And many other safeguards as well–all of which Obama has disabled on his website.

It’s nice of The World(tm) to try and buy us a president, but we’ll settle for a Coke and a smile. Really.

For my rubles, Jay Nordlinger said it best:

Obama said of Senator McCain: “By the end of the week, he’ll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.” –That’s interesting. Obama evidently thinks of communists as people who share. I think of them as people who kill.

“secret”?

Is Obama a Socialist? No. Bernie Saunders is a Socialist Party-member, and he ranks fourth in Most Left-Wing Member of Congress.

I know this story is from the People’s Democratic Republic of Massachusetts, but c’mon, can’t a kid have a birthday there without it too being a morality tale? Answer: “no.”

When Carrie Alyea’s daughter, Piper, turned 7 this month, guests invited to her jungle-themed party were asked not to bring presents for the birthday girl. Instead, they could donate $5 to the parents’ organization at Piper’s school.

First sign Mom is a tool? The trendy moniker of “Piper.” But…I digress. The “less stuff” idea sounds great in principle, it really does. But go ahead and peel the onion a bit you really find that it’s not so much about the kid as it is about a pose the parents want to strike in order to appear “socially responsible.”

In some circles, parents have become almost competitive in their quest to banish materialism from their children’s parties. The nonpresent is quickly becoming the “must-have” gift.

“The bragging rights are going to be ‘How much money did you raise at your birthday party?’ ” said University of Minnesota professor Bill Doherty, a founder of the group Birthdays Without Pressure, which hopes to launch a national conversation about super-sized parties.

Kinda conflicted, actually. I mean, on the one hand, I really despise Senator Maverick. On the other hand, I really love my country. On the third hand, Kim du Toit is one of my favorite people (I tend to have sentiments like that about people that assist me in acquiring fine old firearms), and I’ve always been irritated by the fact that he finds it difficult to make ends meet here in what is supposed to be the freest nation on earth.

Look, just go buy something, alright? If you don’t want it, set the shipping address to Republican Party national headquarters. It’s for a good cause (Kim’s pocketbook) and you can send the message you want.